October 8, 2002

Why do people who find the government utterly clueless, inefficient, and worse-than-useless when it comes to airport security find the same government utterly trustworthy, prescient, and correct when it comes to Iraq?

Shouldn’t anybody with an “Impeach Norm Mineta” bumper sticker call for war in the Middle East with, at the very least, a sense of irony?

I am in favor of an invasion of Iraq, but it's definitely the case that the best argument againsts it come from the mouths of Bush administration spokesmen. They are just so sleazy and dishonest that they taint the whole pro-war position. However, the real political choice I face when talking to my elected reps isn't between my ideal and the administration position: it's a choice between Bush's war and no war at all, and I think the former is better.

Other times, though, I get closer to what I want. Eg, right now I'm watching gridlock stall the HSA bill with unqualified relief. In fact, I hope that this November the Congress remains divided, with one chamber Democratic and the other Republican, precisely to perpetuate gridlock on this bill.

"Shouldn't anybody with an 'Impeach Norm Mineta' bumper sticker call for war in the Middle East with, at the very least, a sense of irony?"

Why?

Where's the irony in believing that a particular member of Bush's cabinet (in charge of a particular governmental role, such as transportation) is incompetent, while others (e.g., those in charge of the military) are not?

Patrick wrote: "Of course, that's not what was being suggested, as you know perfectly well. But it's a good attempt at blowing smoke."

Were you referring to my post? If so, why was it "blowing smoke"?

The "suggestion", as I read it, was that people were hypocritical for trusting how the current administration might handle military action while simultaneously criticizing how domestic security is handled (or am I still off base here?). And I honestly don't see how these views are contradictory.

>>>My mental image of the question my representatives are being asked to vote on is sort of like the local mob boss asking if I'd like him to do something about the neighborhood bully.

Avram, that's a truly amazing moral inversion. If I am not misreading you, you are suggesting that the Bush administration is equivalent to a mob boss and the Iraqi regime is equivalent to a schoolyard bully. I think one should judge the moral character of a government by how it treats individual human beings, and the US government has, over the last two decades and even just during the Bush 2 administration, treated people (citizen or not) one hell of a lot better than the Iraqi government.

Likewise, one should judge the morality of a proposed government policy based on how it will affect actual individual human beings. So, the question I think should be asked is: would an invasion of Iraq yield a net gain in the welfare of the Iraqi people and the security of US citizens? Regardless of whether or not you agree with me about the answer, I think this has to set the shape of the terms of the debate.

In fact, it's one of my great frustrations that no politician -- with the honorable exception (and I can't believe I'm writing this) of Tony Blair -- seems to care about this. The administration has a new rationale every speech, and the bulk of the antiwar criticism I've read seems to be obsessively process-focused, as if an invasion would be ethical with UN Security Council approval but not otherwise.

I took Avram's point to be that we're not really being asked to support the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. Along with the rest of the world, we're being told. No, George W. Bush isn't the exact moral equivalent of a "mob boss", but his administration's behavior here is pretty similar to a mob guy's "offer" of "protection." It's not really an offer. We're being told what we're going to accept.

"Obsessively process-focussed" is a nice slur. But like Hendrik Hertzberg, I've given up expecting so-called "conservatives" to actually be concerned about conservative things. Power does not and will not corrupt us, we're powerful because we're right, we're right because we're powerful, and our leaders are now and forever the good guys, for how could they not be? Those doubting these self-evident truths are "obsessively process-focussed". Mensheviks, even. Foot-draggers and counter-revolutionaries. It is our noble calling to reveal and condemn these reactionary enemies of socialism in one country. Tune in for the show trials next.

Why is it so many people arguing the minority view on this position reflexively lapse into martyr posture?

How about arguing the merits of your position instead?

And how about, we're powerful because as a society we place a premium on human rights, freedom, religious plurality, the open exchange of ideas, and democratic debate as opposed to totalitarianism, torture, and thuggery? And how about, we're right for the same reasons?

Our leaders aren't "now and forever the good guys"...not by a long shot. But on a relative scale, I'd take them with all their warts over any other today.

You're seemingly accusing anyone who supports punitive military action against Iraq of being incapable of seeing in any shades other than black and white, a view which as incorrect as it is belittling.

Plenty of merits of various positions have been argued. I spent months on this very weblog making the exact point you've made just now: that even with its flaws, American society is worth defending, and vastly preferably to most of the alternatives. And criticizing lefties who seem to have lost track of that.

Here, however, we're not arguing about whether America is worth defending, or whether our political class is preferable to many other countries' political class. As you knew perfectly well when you tried to subtly shift the subject. Gosh, why do I have such difficulty believing in the war party's rhetorical good faith? I can't imagine.

I suppose I still don't understand how I "subtly shifted the subject".

Nobody's yet explained to me what Norm Mineta's ineptitude has to do with the purity of the Administration's motives with regard to taking military action against Iraq. And don't tell me this isn't what the original post was about. This is *precisely* what the original post was about.

Coppersmith was referring to people "with an 'Impeach Norm Mineta' bumper sticker" as shorthand for people who, like some famous bloggers, enthusiastically cite Mineta's failings as proof of the general ineptitude of government, but seem more inclined to take the same government's claims at face value where issues of war and peace are concerned.

This inconsistency is noted by moderate liberals like Sam Coppersmith and red-meat libertarians like Jim Henley.

No one's claiming that it's illegitimate to think one Cabinet member is inept while finding another one credible. But the blogospheric pummeling of Mineta hasn't been about Mineta; it's been about making the popular right-wing point that Federal bureaucrats are stoopid. All except the ones who want a war with Iraq. Those are exempt from the corruptions of power, and from the laws of unintended consequence to which other government figures are subject.

>>> I took Avram's point to be that we're not really being asked to support the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. Along with the rest of the world, we're being told. [...] It's not really an offer. We're being told what we're going to accept.

The Democratic party controls the Senate; as the opposition it's their responsibility to put some teeth into the Constitutional constraints on the president. And I don't think they've done a bad job at it, either: they've pared back the scope of the grant of right-of-force from Bush's original request, and they've added an excellent clause requiring the President to report back to Congress on any use of that authority.

I don't like the very existence of Social Security. But I don't regard it as "an offer I can't refuse"; instead, it's my job to convince enough other people that it's a bad idea to get it repealed. I don't see what's so very different about the act of war.

>>> But like Hendrik Hertzberg, I've given up expecting so-called "conservatives" to actually be concerned about conservative things.

FWIW, I'm definitely not a conservative, so I am not concerned with making the conservative case.

>>> "Obsessively process-focussed" is a nice slur. [...] Power does not and will not corrupt us, we're powerful because we're right, we're right because we're powerful, and our leaders are now and forever the good guys, for how could they not be? Those doubting these self-evident truths are "obsessively process-focussed". Mensheviks, even. Foot-draggers and counter-revolutionaries. It is our noble calling to reveal and condemn these reactionary enemies of socialism in one country. Tune in for the show trials next.

I don't know what I said that made you so angry. I'd be nuts to dispute the benefits of due process. But: it's due process I care about, and not just any process.

The deliberative mechanisms of democracy, I like a lot. So you won't see me complaining about (for example) Bonnior or McDermott. Likewise, if the Germans voted in Schroeder to keep them out of any invasion of Iraq, that's OK with me.

But on the other hand, I don't think the UN has any moral legitimacy to convey to anything the US chooses to do. It can't convey any legitimacy precisely because it's a club for all governments, whether or not they rule with the consent of the governed.

So I think that anyone who thinks that an invasion of Iraq would "become legitimate" if it had UN sanction, is more focused on process than on justice. It's not a slur; it's a forthright attack on what I see as bad moral reasoning. If an invasion were immoral without UN sanction, it would remain so with it, and vice versa.

So I feel free to think that the Kosovo war was morally legitimate, despite lacking UN sanction, and conversely, I think the ICC is not morally legitimate, despite having UN sanction.

I openly confess to having a double standard: I think that democratic governments that rule with the consent of their governed do not have to respect the sovereignty of countries that don't, except for tactical or prudential reasons. The US government should feel ethically constrained to respect the sovereignty of Brazil or Belgium, but not of Syria or Saudi Arabia, IMO. This is because we should care about the well-being of the inhabitants of other nations, and a representative government can be presumed to be a better judge of their welfare than a distant America can. But we need make no such presumption when it comes to tyrannies.

So now let's apply this to Iraq. I think we need to answer two questions to make the case for war. First, will Americans be made enough safer to justify the risks of war? Second, will the inhabitants of Iraq be better off if we fight it? I think the answer to both questions is yes. For the first, I believe that the other tyrannies of the Middle East will become more frightened of the US after they see another of their kind getting destroyed in the wake of an attack on the US. That will induce them direct their secret police forces to crack down on anti-American terror organizations, rather than using them to fight their proxy wars. For the second, I can point to the situation of the Kurds north of the no-fly zone to the situation of those south of it. (Yes, I think that the Kurds would be even better off if they had their own democratic state, but that can't be established while Iraq is still led by Hussein.)

I see plenty of points where a reasonable person could disagree with me, but I don't see where you could get the idea that I'm calling for show trials and the Cheka to start shooting Mensheviks in the street. I honestly believe that everything I've said is firmly in the Millsian tradition.

PNH wrote: "Coppersmith was referring to people 'with an "Impeach Norm Mineta" bumper sticker' as shorthand for people who, like some famous bloggers, enthusiastically cite Mineta's failings as proof of the general ineptitude of government, but seem more inclined to take the same government's claims at face value where issues of war and peace are concerned."

I guess I just didn't get the shorthand, then.

Funny that. When I see an "Impeach Norm Mineta" bumper sticker, I think it means "Impeach Norm Mineta", not "The Government is Generally Inept" or "Federal Bureaucrats are Stoopid".

I suppose the original post was much too deft and subtle for my sensibilities. Excuse me for all my smoke blowing and subject shifting.

Patrick, your comments are usually thoughtful and lucid, but I interpreted your remarks the same way Neel and Derek did, and you sound like a disgruntled campus politico in this discussion, a persona I have never associated with you before.

"Gosh, why do I have such difficulty believing in the war party's rhetorical good faith?"

I'm quite uncomfortable with this. I'm still on the uncertain, rather fence-straddling side, here, as you've condemmed me for in e-mail, with an implication of bad faith. And I lean slightly towards the "maybe war may be the least bad solution" side (though I'm just damned uncertain and unsure).

Maybe I'm a jerk for not staking out a clear position, but I don't have one, and I'm darn well not going to fake one for the sake of false clarity.

Meanwhile, I don't think most people who think that overturning the Hussein government are thinking or acting or speaking out of bad faith.

I expect you were merely writing uncharacteristically unclearly in implying that. But if you wanted to merely condemn some individuals in the Bush Administration, or some specific columnists or bloggers, it would have been well to have been clearer.

Incidentally, Neel Krishnaswami has been making a heck of a lot of sense to me, here, as elsewhere in comments to you, and I look forward to him doing his own blog. Sign me up for most of what he's said. (I thought his point about "Obsessively process-focussed" vis a vis those who focus on UN approval was entirely a well-taken point,and I think your calling it a "slur" is, well, a slur, on an entirely reasonable point of discussion about which people of, um, good faith, can discuss and perhaps disagree.)

"I'm still on the uncertain, rather fence-straddling side, here, as you've condemmed me for in e-mail, with an implication of bad faith."

Having just re-read all emails to you of the last month or so, I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about. It's possible I'm overlooking something. Perhaps instead of making unpleasantly vague references to email, you could clarify. Or perhaps the unpleasant references to email are the point. Next time I send you email, I'll keep that in mind.

"Maybe I'm a jerk for not staking out a clear position, but I don't have one, and I'm darn well not going to fake one for the sake of false clarity. "

Glad we cleared that up. You sure told off all those people calling on you to "fake one for the sake of false clarity."

As for being "obsessively process-focussed," I don't care a whole lot about the UN, but I do indeed care about American democracy. I'm not remotely surprised that you don't much care about the consent of the governed, since your angry contempt for average people who don't memorize the front section of the New York Times daily is a matter of Usenet record, but some of us cling to the antiquated notion that the wishes and beliefs of the people ought to matter. Today, such notions amount to being "obsessively process-focussed." So it goes.

Gary said: Maybe I'm a jerk for not staking out a clear position, but I don't have one, and I'm darn well not going to fake one for the sake of false clarity.

In recent weeks, I've found myself noticing it more starkly when people assume the worst kind of bad will from people where the assumption of good will should, in fact, be in place. I wish to thank Gary for providing such a stellar example. If this sentence was meant as a true assessment of Patrick's desires, I will have a hard time taking anything you say seriously, ever; if it was meant as a rhetorical flourish, it was exceedingly stupid, rude, and off-putting.

That's on top of the fact that it seems to be completely beside-the-point. Since Patrick was criticizing the good faith of "the war party", how can he possibly be talking about you, since you are, by your own declaration, not in the war party?

To Patrick's actual point, the "war party" is run by a pack of unelected officiasl who could not be trusted to honestly tell you if they were choking to death. I can't be the first person to tell you this; in fact, I'm pretty sure you agree with me.